They’ve traded the only one who immediately qualifies to the Angels for prospects. Closer Huston Street had been a goner for weeks, but I’m against yet another deal -- this time, by a ship without a baseball ops captain -- that offers no guarantees for success and makes another team better. It’s easy to sail into the inevitable.

If you’re like me, you’re beyond tired of this, aiding others and getting mysteries in return. The Padres jumped the starting pistol on this trade.

As good as he was, Huston wasn’t a hook. He couldn’t be Trevor Hoffman. There wasn’t enough work for him to do. But the Padres, who have redefined boring, just got worse.

Granted, when a team is historically inept at scoring runs, having a top closer is fat baggage, 1,000 pounds overweight at the MLB check-in counter. At least Street, a good and honest fellow, moves to a contender.

But none of this means the deal had to be done now. Street didn’t have to be traded, let alone early, to an organization not exactly teeming with great prospects. Some people are saying San Diego got the best of this deal. How the hell can anybody know that?

The key players in the swap, shortstop Jose Rondon and second baseman Taylor Lindsey, are considered among the Angels’ top 10 everyday prospects. But their farm hardly is considered bountiful. Only Lindsey was considered a top 100 MLB prospect, and he was rated No. 93 by Baseball America. Chicago just got killer prospect Addison Russell from the A’s, because the Cubs had a towel they refused to throw in.

Prospects remain just that, prospects. Potential stinks -- until it is fulfilled, and in baseball it often is not. You give away known for the unknown.

But this is what happens when you inexplicably can your general manager (Josh Byrnes) in June -- after the draft, no less -- and show your hand way too early to a bunch of card sharps. Padres players, when they aren’t getting base hits, which is often, must be concerned over who’s steering the tug.

But I can’t help but wonder: If the Pads had a sitting GM, not just one (well, three) without portfolio, would he or she have cut the deal? Maybe. Maybe not. But Byrnes’ successor should have been given the chance.

They have dragged out the GM search far too long, interviewing everyone but Yogi Berra, towing their pursuit barge deep into the trading period, which ends July 29. It’s surprising beleaguered fans haven’t been asked to vote on the hire. If they can’t get a new baseball boss in here by the target date, why not interview 200 more people and wait until October?

This is a bassackward process, terribly unbecoming.

Rumors afoot claim former Padres GM Kevin Towers, now hanging by a nasal hair in Arizona, may be brought in as a senior advisor to work alongside the new GM. Twitter is aghast at the thought, but if I didn’t have a bum shoulder, I would welcome KT back with open arms.

Granted, Towers hardly was the best at drafting players. In that regard, neither were his predecessors, and he became hamstrung by available dollars. But, nevertheless, during his run here, from 1995-2009, he put together the best teams in franchise history. With KT, the Padres reached the post-season four times, including the 1998 World Series.

One thing about Towers: He was a master trader; if your eyes blinked, he’d pull wool over them. He was not charitable, improving the rich by giving them his best players.

KT, rightly, has pooh-poohed the talk, saying he’s a Diamondback, but with Tony LaRussa brought into Arizona to boss him, he knows his time in the desert is cooked.

And Kevin would not be brought in here as general manager, although, again, a fresh GM should be the one to name his associates.

“Any new hire in the front office will be up to the new GM,” Padres CEO Mike Dee told Fox Sports. “Kevin Towers is not a candidate for that position. Thus, any speculation about Kevin rejoining the Padres is just that, speculation.”

If Dee’s right about that, and he is, why not allow the new GM to make deals?

Anyway, I would take Towers back, this instant. Kevin could play poker with the big boys. What we have now are guys playing a dangerous game of penny ante.